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Dolce

Lt. Bruno Von Falk

Bruno von Falk is the handsome and cultured German officer billeted with the Angelliers in a rural French village. He is young and "lovely," plays Scarlatti beautifully on the piano with his "slim white hands" and Lucille develops feelings for him.

Aired under Women's Hour Drama in the 10 am slot for 5 consecutive days

Broadcast Date

BBC Radio 4 on Aug 14-18 2006

Runtime

Status

Currently not broadcasting

Synopsis

Dolce opens bucolic and becalmed after the French people have lost their war in the spring of 1941. A German garrison of Wehrmacht is billeted in the rural French village of Bussy. The local fighting men are away, and the old, women and children greet their conquerors with sullen apprehension. The beautiful Lucille Angellier lives with her widowed mother-in-law in the most elegant house in the village. She doesn't regret the absence of her loutish, philandering husband, Gaston, who is in a German prison camp, although she hides her feelings from his mother who regards him as a saint. Bruno von Falk, a handsome German officer has been assigned to live in their house. Lucille tries to treat the intruder with icy disdain as displayed by her mother-in-law, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to him. He is handsome, he plays the piano beautifully, he tells her he had hoped to be a musician before his military obligations intervened, and he reads Balzac. Night after night, Lucille grows more sensitive to Bruno's presence in the bedroom next door. She can hear the sounds of his pacing and the ensuing silence which suggests sleep. Bruno von Falk is like a breath of fresh air in Lucille's shuttered, unhappy life and they enter into a tender platonic relationship, one of which Lucille desires will last forever --- that is, until a friend asks Lucille to hide her fugitive husband in her spacious Angellier house. The murder of Lt. Bonnett forces Lucille to choose between love and honour.

Adapted for radio drama by Penny Leicester Based on the second novel of Suite Francaise, Dolce, by Irene Nemirovsky

Notes

Irene Nemirovsky had originally designed a series of 5 novellas in Suite Francaise. After Storm in June, the second novel was Dolce, but it was to be her last. In 1942, months after she completed Dolce, Nemirovsky was arrested and taken to Auschwitz. She died there without completing Suite Francaise.

Her manuscripts lay hidden in a suitcase for sixty years before they were discovered by her daughter and published to international acclaim

In 2006, the movie rights to Suite Francaise were sold and filming began in 2013 with Michelle Williams to play Lucille and Matthias Schoenaerts as von Falk.